


We All Fall Down

by Princeling



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3390929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princeling/pseuds/Princeling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She liked structure, she liked things to make sense. She liked easy-to-follow schedules and categorizing things, she liked the uniformity of traditions and following them; there was no back-up plan for this…whatever it was.</p>
<p>Or: Lavellan just wanted to enjoy her rare day off, but anxiety grips her and no amount of logic seems to be helping it any, until Krem offers a shoulder of support.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We All Fall Down

It had been easy to ignore at first. The flutter in her stomach, the occasional tightness in her chest, all easily shoo’d away. _This isn’t the time for this,_ she thought, taking a deep breath before soldiering on. The feelings had abated for a time, Lavellan too busy, too constant to give it any thought.

It was only in the lull of a rarely lax day that it reared its ugly head full force. It had hit almost all at once, causing her to actually stagger upon the last couple steps leading to her main hall. Her palms hit the stone door frame, nose a hair’s width from the wood door itself. _Was there an earthqua_ — No, it was her, the shaking was all her.

_Why is this happening?_ Was her first bewildered thought. Uneasily she pushes away from the door and stepped back, just staring at the designs in the grain. Her hands feel strange, like she's hyperaware of where they were and that she was doing nothing with them. She crosses her arms over her chest and frowns, trying to stave off the impending feeling of doom through pure logic. 

What was she so afraid of? Well— The obvious, of course, but that hadn’t seemed to bother her before. _Much_. Not that it wasn’t on her mind, it wasn’t as if that was something she could just ignore, but it had never come out like _this_ and _why now_ and _why her_? There was nothing really for her to do today. She’d managed to get ahead of pretty much everything important (her advisers had been particularly pleased with both her and themselves, using their newfound “time off” [for a given value of ‘time off’ since when weren’t they all working on something?] to pursue other areas of interest). She’d just wanted the time to relax, let herself not worry or once and her body, her mind, _something_ was ruining everything.

She feels her breath catch strangely, breathing becoming slightly more difficult. It was… odd. The whole situation was odd, like she was detached from the experience and watching it happen to someone else while still going through the motions of it.

Was it just everything coming down on her at once? Her body finally had the chance to stop thinking about everything, which unfortunately freed her up to _actually think about everything_. Suddenly the room beyond the door wasn’t just a room, but a straight plunge into a dragon’s lair, daunting and huge and she _couldn’t breath_ —

"Your worship?"

The voice is concerned, wary, and Lavellan’s breath hitched unnaturally. Her eyes, which had been staring unseeing at a fixed point on the door—now a man’s chestplate— snapped up to the man’s face, wide and wild with fear.

"Are you alright?" He spoke carefully, as if to a spooked fennec, one hand going to rest in faux-casualness on his sword.

"Oh. Krem. Hello." Her voice sounds so strange to her own ears, stilted and hollow and very, very small. "Yes, fine. Everything’s… fine?" It was like suddenly having a bucket of ice water dumped on her and no longer was she staring at the situation from afar, but shoved back into the experience. She inhales sharply and Krem steps forward into the stairwell proper, forcing Lavellan to take a few clumsy steps back so he wasn’t standing in the doorway any more. 

She noticed he didn’t close the door all the way, that he stood enough to the side to allow her to pass; she wasn’t being trapped and the gesture touched her, calmed her somewhat. Neither of them spoke for a moment, Krem seeming to think on what he wanted to say here.

"It’s stupid," Lavellan suddenly blurted out,and Krem looked to her in surprise. "I’m being stupid. This whole thing is stupid."

Silence for a beat, and she felt the compulsion to explain, but how could she when she didn’t know herself?

"Everything was fine, and now suddenly it’s not. It’s not fair, why is this happening now? I wanted to enjoy the day, and I can’t even do that because I… I’m freaking out, and there’s no _reason!_ ”

She liked structure, she liked things to make _sense_. She liked easy-to-follow schedules and categorizing things, she liked the uniformity of traditions and following them; there was no back-up plan for this…whatever it was.

Krem considered her carefully and glanced back out at the hall; so far it seemed no one had taken notice of the door being ajar, the Inquisitor standing beyond it, or the Charger to its side. “After everything that happened?” 

She frowned at him. “But, it’s— it’s happened already. And everything else, everything to come, I… Well, we have it under control?” She hated the way her voice lifted in question, uncertainty worming at her heart. “…Don’t we? I need to sit down.”

It’s said in a strange rush, but suddenly Krem is at her side, a hand on her elbow and a question in his eyes. She nodded and his grip grew firm, but not unyielding. _He’s good at this,_ she thinks, and allows herself to lean on the offered arm.

"I have a couch. I don’t want to sit on the stairs." She doesn’t want anyone to walk in and have her being the first thing they see.

So they walk, arm in arm, a slow ascent back up the stairs until they can sit side-by-side on the couch. The view of the mountains is breathtaking, and the quiet is broken only by Leliana’s crows as they fly by. The peace and relative tranquility has Lavellan releasing a breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. Her arm still never leaves the loop with Krem’s.

"I just—" She begins, and then falls quiet. Krem looks at her and waits patiently as she sighs. "It’s so _stupid_. I can’t do anything about what’s happened. I’m doing everything I can for what will, but only so much of it is in my hands. Why bother worrying about what’s out of it? Why is it _there_ , it’s just looming like some snake about to strike. I don’t… I don’t like it.”

She feels a hitch of Krem’s body, a silent laugh and she narrows her eyes at him. “I don’t think anyone likes it, your worship.”

"Well— yes, alright. That’s true." She laughs a little despite herself and silence falls once more; but it’s a comfortable kind as her eyes track the movement of a cloud.

"I don’t like… not being able to do anything. About this, I mean. I try to be rational. I look at it and say, ‘but there’s no point worrying about this,’ but the feeling still comes like a wave. I’m overwhelmed, and then I relax, and then I’m overwhelmed again. I just wanted to enjoy my day." Softly she sighs and adds, "it’s not fair. Why me…"

Krem isn’t sure if the ‘why me’ meant ‘why was this anxiety happening to me’ or ‘why did this entire thing with fade rifts and the world’s last hope happen to me’; either would be a good question. He hesitates a moment and his arm moves to rest on her shoulders, a little awkward but his determination to do this outweighs the feeling of wanting to excuse himself before he cocks it all up somehow. “You’re not alone, you know. Sure it’s a huge burden, but you’ve got plenty of people to help you shoulder it.” He rolls his own shoulders and adds, “you could try giving more to the chief, maker knows he’s got the width for it.”

She laughs again and he finds himself smiling as he continues. “And it’s alright, you know. To feel like this, I mean. If anyone has the right to a breakdown here it’s you. Not that this is a breakdown. I mean—” A rough sigh as he blunders through it, his free hand going up to aggressively ruffle his hair.

A light touch makes him pause and lower it again, finding himself staring at Lavellan’s arm as she tries to fix it. “I know what you meant,” She assures him, and takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. They fall silent again, but this time Lavellan relaxes against his side, mulling it all over.

"…Can we just—" She begins, pauses, and again he patiently waits for her to gather her thoughts in the way she wants. "Can we just stay here for a little bit? i feel better, but I… I don’t know. I just want to stay here."

"Of course." 

There was, of course, a reason he had come to see her, but it could wait. Whatever was needed of her could wait until she was ready to face it, and Krem was wiling to wait however long that was. Mentally he made a note to check up with her more often, to take her out of the Inquisitor role and help her relax. She needed it clearly; he wasn’t sure how much he could do or how much it would actually help, but—

"Krem?"

Startled, he cleared his throat, suddenly aware of Lavellan’s frown and the squirming.

"You need to take the armor off first. This is uncomfortable now."

"Oh, er— Yes, of course." He blushed, she laughed, and the world shifted back into balance for Lavellan once again.

**Author's Note:**

> My tenses are all over the place; I am aware, I don't care much about them so they tend to switch around. Oh well. I also haven't written fic in YEARS so uh. Yeah.


End file.
